I was without power for 19 hours. I live in Queens (a borough of NYC for those unfamiliar w/the area). When the power went out, I thought it was just your typical summer outage. We had a bunch last summer so I wasn't concerned. I even taught a voice lesson early Thursday evening. Little did I know what was going on. I live right near the subway so this is generally a crowded area. It was an insane night full of sirens and people yelling in the streets. All the businesses were closed and their gates were locked by sundown. Everything was dark. You can usually see Manhattan Island from my terrace, but their was just darkness. The only lights outside were road flares where cops were directing traffic and LaGuardia Airport. I stayed up all night because there was this feeling of complete chaos. Everything was fine, except for some spoiled food. I'm glad I wasn't in Manhattan when it happened. Otherwise, I would have been one of the hundreds sleeping on the streets or forced to walk home. I couldn't even imagine. I just thought I'd add my NYC story...

That sucks it was so long. Didn't some parts of Queens get power pretty quickly after it went out (couple hours)?

I couldn't sleep either the overall darkness was unsettling and there were plenty of kids roaming the streets up to no good in my area so I was concerned about breakins and the like. I sat in my living room with some candles on and read a magazine (EW) until about 2:30AM when the power came on. Checked my email > posted here > turned on TV and knocked right out.

Wow. I just flew in from NY yesterday... I'm pretty glad to be home finally, but thankfully I wasn't stuck in the blackout.

The day it started we were in a hotel room near O'hare (Chicago) waiting for our flight to NY to leave the next day... don't ask why - had to get away from relatives. Anyway, we get an SMS from my friend (in Brazil) saying 'Are you OK? Just seen the news'. So we switch on thinking 'WTF?' to find that we probably won't be going to NY after all... we held out hope that we would be able to fly the next morning and sure enough the flights were landing, but it all looked like a huge chaos that we didn't want to deal with... people sleeping in the streets and the roads gridlocked, subways not working. We were booked into a room on the 9th floor of a hotel, so with no way to get from the airport to manhattan, and no AC, and no elevators, and the city in confusion and what have you, we delayed for the day. Spent ages on the phone assuring relatives we were OK and then off to my cousins for the night. We arrived in NY the day after and things were almost back to normal thankfully... guggenheim and empire state building shut but other than that fine.

Enduring memory of NY: the people were so friendly and helpful to us hopeless tourists. Having seen them in action, I'm not surprised at the orderly and cheerful nature with which this crisis was accepted.

Last blackout I experienced was Christmas last year. Thankfully after the meal had been cooked... after about 3 hours without entertainment my family was ready to tear its hair out